Tír Na HiFi

here using (or do you know anyone using) a wood pellet stove/water heater/central heating boiler. Oil is very pricey and likely to get worse IMHO so I am doing research into alternatives to oil. If you can help or offer an opinion, please send a PM with your contact details and I will phone you.

Thanks.

Tom.

Air to Water or Water to Water direct contact is the way of the future.The UK has 2020 the deadline for ending gas and oil to heat domestic propertys,we will follow shortly after.Wood pellet has been one of the biggest ripoff of recent times,very few people are happy with it

I have an air source heat pump, have been very happy with it, but really they're only for underfloor heating......

Fran

Rocker wrote:here using (or do you know anyone using) a wood pellet stove .....

We looked at that possibility a few years again but even then availability of the pellets was becoming an issue, as far as I know it still is. A huge issue is storage too. They work best with a 'hopper' feeding the stove and storage for large amounts of pellets. Pellets are expensive unless you're buying in bulk (1 ton or thereabouts) it's every bit as expensive as other fuels. We went for a standard wood burner i.e. logs and it's great. That said it's not our main source of heat, it's a standalone stove for the living room and any adjacent rooms.

Fran The air source heat pump from my investigations seem to really only suit a house like yours which is not on the gas grid. The property also needs very high levels of insulation for this system to be effective. You use electricity to make up the shortfall and for hot water?
They tried to sell the idea to me for a draughty old house we were looking at but I cant see how it could work in that situation as heat loss is unavoidable also as fran's outlines it really only works with underfloor. Companies suggest it can work with radiators by over sizing the rads but I think thats impossible. Very interesting comments re gas/oil as that will be great for heating companies but disasterous for consumers.
I dont know anything about wood pellets but Ivors advice seems to be a very common story. I think the climate here is too moist. Pellets when they absorb moisture do not burn properly.

I have investigated all the above options and I think frans system for country areas in high spec houses and oil for bungalow blight era builds.
Gas for cities(vitodens modulating boiler for best efficiency) + ivors wood burning stove for any house no matter where it is especially for women folk as I find the heat from them resembles the equator at midday.

Indeed very pertinant question, which as oil continues its travel North we may all have to consider energy efficiency more seriously, else switch to Class D (as per Claus).

I believe there was a quality issue with the wood pellets, not enough wood and too much garbage which caused combustion problems. However this may have been sorted by now (not sure one would need to check).

Another possibility is a Dachs unit, provided you have under floor heating and tons of cash.

Alternatively I believe there is a smaller CHP unit one can buy, Senertech I think, or is it Baxi, maybe Whispergen, can't remember. Its about 20% of the power of a Dachs unit, much more suitable for a single dwelling with a smaller number of occupants etc.

No matter what option you go for there are always pros and cons, and nearly always somebody to advise you " Naa, you don't wanna do that because...."


Alternatively you could invest in a 845 or 805 Triode amplifier, they run as hot as hell, HI Fi and central heating, best of both worlds!!

Decisions decisions...

Insulation always helps. By todays standards this house (over insulated 5 years ago) is now well short of what is available. Heat pumps, whether ground or air source excel at getting water to ~30-35degC. Perfect for underfloor, but simply not hot enough for rads of any kind IMHO. Lots of people came to look at the system here and many said they were doing underfloor downstairs and rads upstairs. I told them all it wouldn;t work - either go underfloor upstairs as well, or else use storage heaters + night rate electricity.

Its worked very well for me, I'm very happy with my choices (as is the missus), but the house needs to be sympathetic to it.


Fran

Lol I think Adrians got the bit between his teeth there and really on the ball. I really wanted what fran advised people to rightly avoid i.e underfloor with air to water but with rads upstairs it just doesn' add up economically as you would need a gas/oil boiler for the rads and hot water. I think if money was no object thats the way to go as you have the best of both worlds just add some rads downstairs in case you get a cold snap. I think thats another problem for ireland as well as being bankrupt the temp changes too quickly i.e warm the other day 15 centigrade and back down to 3 the next day. I think you should consider setting up tirnaheating.org to cater for this subject.

We looked into it last year and it's really hard to beat gas on a purely financial basis. As was pointed out the pellets are a pain, particularly in our damp climate and their price seems to be linked to oil as far as I was told, so the savings don't really increase as oil rises anyway. I think insulation should be the first expense if possible. Our extension is incredibly easy to heat.

Most of the air to water or water to water units that we fit are underfloor downstairs and rads upstairs.Aluminiun rads such as Nova Florida work a treat with low temp heating as that is what they are designed to do.I myself live in the a*"s^hole of kerry and have water to water direct contact for heating using a buffer tank.It is pumped up from our well and 10 degrees is taken out of every litre and stored in the buffer tank until needed ,it is then blended to 45 degrees for heating use so 1000 litres at 90 degrees is 2000 litres at 45 degrees.Domestic hot is stored in the same tank in a tightly coiled 120mm stainless tube and then again blended at 60 degrees.On my buffer tank i also have 5 solar panels connected and a solid fuel stove as i have some bogland and forrestry.As soon as the weather gets a little better i will be fitting 26 photo voltaic panels and that should put me in a good position for the next few years.I am a plumber so this is my business and an ideal place to test this stuff out